COP15 Copenhagen
No-one was ecstatic with the outcome at Copenhagen - it was an accord reached between the US, China, Brazil, South Africa and India that recognised the need to limit temperature rises to 2C but included no legally binding targets to accomplish this. There was also no timeline to turn it into a binding agreement or a year by which carbon emissions should peak.
On the positive side, the deal does provide for approximately $30 million for poor countries to deal iwth climate change over the next three years. The amount looks set to rise to about $100 billion a year by 2020. However, those who were waiting for US President Barack Obama to ride in on a white charger and save the day were trying hard to hide their disappointment after enduring days in the freezing cold fighting for space with more than 45,000 delegates.
Many countries are already getting on with the job of driving innovation in low-emission technologies and transforming their energy mix to deal with the challenge of climate change. Although a legally binding global deal looks someway off - if it is possible at all - the technology revolution has already begun. Many industrialised countries are already investing heavily in renewable energy and energy efficiency, which together present ways to reduce our energy use and power our lives with clean energy sources. Australia's renewable energy target of 20% by 2020 provides a place to start while our country waits for a price on carbon pollution through an emissions trading mechanism or other means.
Our world leaders have not tried to pretend that Copenhagen provided the magic bullet many were hoping for. Barack Obama did not pretend that he had saved the day, while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was clearly disappointed with the outcome. However, leading Australian scientist Tim Flannery was upbeat, saying the talks were a place to start and that there had been some significant gains made at the conference - including the support for developing countries and the efforts to protectr tropical rainforests.
